Nick broke into a sprint, approaching the demon silently from his blind side. He launched his body against the larger, younger man. The fight that erupted between the two men was brutal and feral; there were a few punches, but mostly the combat consisted of biting and scratching. Nick was too angry to fight intelligently. No part of his logical mind engaged the demon; this was a battle of instinct and emotions. In the rolling mixture of arms, legs, and dust, the primal battle continued. Nõn was startled by a pain-filled, enraged scream as Nick spit out the demon’s left ear from his bloody mouth. She’d reached the child and freed him. She grabbed the child and began to run towards the jungle. The child barely understood that he’d been rescued; the terror he’d felt had pushed him into a state of fear that was uncontrollable. Suddenly, he was free and a woman was dragging him to the jungle, away from the men who had hurt him. As his fear subsided, he realized this was the woman he’d watched running on the roadway the day before. She had many scars on her body, he remembered, as her and the older man sat in the roadway talking. They slowly got dressed after handing each other their clothes back and forth. They were looking for something; he could see that. But nothing they did made sense. He was curious and followed them to the camp, watching as they climbed under one of the strange buildings. He had run home to the village and returned to the jungle today to continue to spy on the people there.

  Once they reached the jungle, the boy came back to his senses and took the lead, pulling on Nõn’s hand, as he was now in familiar territory.

  Back at the camp, the fight continued. Nick was tiring fast. He hadn’t been sleeping in a pampered room, eating regular meals and drinking water. The week’s events had drained his strength. He had very little energy left and knew when the fight began, it was a futile effort. He could hurt the demon, but he wouldn’t defeat him. He just hoped to give Nõn and the boy a good head start. Quickly, the demon gained the upper hand, slamming Nick’s head into the ground and instantly disorienting him. The demon called out to Kerry, “Here is your trophy, what shall we do with him?!”

  Kerry was beside himself with twisted glee and clapped his hands joyfully. “Oh, oh, let me go get my camera, I want to get pictures of this.”

  The demon stayed on top of Nick, pinning him to the ground. “I am going to enjoy cutting you up in little pieces, old man, then I will find and torture that redheaded bitch. She will wish she had finished me years ago.”

  Nick smiled a tired smile. “But the hyena was hungry. I bet you kept him, just to smell your dick on his breath.”

  The demon slammed Nick’s head into the ground again and spit on his face. “You will know what I felt like soon enough, only I think I will feed you your own cock before this is over.”

  Dazed, Nick replied, “Is this some kind of weird initiation? I think I changed my mind; I’d rather pledge another fraternity.”

  Nick was nearly unconscious when his face was covered by warm arterial spray. His eyes were suddenly filled with blood, and he spit the hot liquid from his mouth, coughing. Funny, he felt no pain; this wasn’t what he thought it would be like to bleed to death. Surprised the weight of the demon was no longer there, he could feel his arms were free, and he started to wipe the blood from his eyes. When he finally was able to see what had happened, the scene wasn’t what he expected.

  Nõn had run into the jungle with the boy and then stopped. Nothing in her dream included leaving the wolf. Nothing in her own heart said this was how she wanted to end this lifelong battle with the demon. She stopped and kissed the small boy’s head and motioned for him to go, then turned and went back to the camp, hoping it wasn’t too late.

  Nõn arrived at the camp as Kerry was running back to his room to retrieve the camera. The scene was surreal as she watched the man skipping like a child as he ran, clapping and smiling his creepy, brainless and evil smile. She shook her head and continued to where she’d last seen the men fighting.

  Listening as she quietly snuck up behind the demon sitting astride Nick, she heard that even now, defeated, Nick was taunting the demon. She smiled, hearing his stupid jokes; she realized it wasn’t too late.

  Nõn stalked the demon and silently came up behind him as he was about to reply to Nick’s fraternity comment. In one violent and lightning fast movement, she grabbed a handful of his hair with her left hand and cut his throat with her knife in her right. The violence and speed of the movement was so fierce, Nõn decapitated the demon with one swipe of the razor sharp knife. The demon was instantly transformed into a human fountain as his life blood erupted from the wound, spraying the area around Nick and covering his face and eyes.

  Nick slowly got up, exhausted, continuing to wipe the blood from his face. Looking at Nõn, he realized she still held the head of the demon in her hand. Nick shook his head and began to laugh as he looked at the surprised look on the demon’s now detached head.

  “And you called me the Nokunna? Really?”

  Nõn replied, simply and quietly, “Finish this.” She tossed the demon’s head into the growing fire.

  Kerry returned, still skipping and smiling that insanely stupid smile he’d left with. The scene, however, had changed dramatically. He blinked, trying to make sense of what he was now looking at. Nick, covered with blood, was walking towards him, every bit the nightmare Kerry had feared. Somehow, the demon had been bested.

  Nick grabbed the soft man by the hair and dragged him to the table, slamming his fat face into the table, knocking him unconscious.

  When Kerry awoke to the unpleasant odor of smelling salts being waved under his nose, he was standing upright; the table had been turned on its end, and he’d been tied to it. He’d been stripped of his clothing and now wore a pair of large, baggy sweatpants. Each of the legs of the pants had been tied tightly with twine. As his vision cleared, he saw Nick standing in front of him; beside him was a large wire trap, which was boiling with rats.

  Nick spoke, “Welcome, Kerry, to your final day on planet Earth.”

  Kerry whimpered helplessly.

  Nick ignited the blowtorch and turned down the flame to an evil blue glow. “Let’s begin, shall we?”

  Nick approached Kerry and smiled. “I promise, this hurts me so much more than it will hurt you; did your mom ever tell you that, Kerry?”

  Kerry said, “Please, no.”

  Nick said calmly, “Answer the question, did she ever say that to you?”

  “Yes, yes, she did!”

  “And was she telling the truth?”

  Kerry didn’t know what to answer, so finally he said, “What do you want me to say?”

  “The truth, Kerry. That’s what I want to hear, the truth.”

  Kerry said, “I don’t know if it hurt her or not.”

  “OK, well tell me, does this hurt?” Nick took the blue flame to Kerry’s right pinky finger. He kept it there until the finger was nothing but a black stub on the hand.

  Nick was unaware of the screams that filled the jungle. He was exhausted and running on pure rage. “I don’t know, Kerry; I think that hurt me a lot less than it hurt you. Maybe the other hand?” Nick bathed the left hand pinky finger in the blue purifying flame, keeping it in place until that finger too was reduced to a charred stub.

  “Ya know, Kerry, a few years ago I was on a case where the parents of a young boy decided that their son wasn’t taking his toilet training seriously enough. The mother held the boy while the father took a butane lighter to his penis. Dad stretched the little boy’s penis out and burned it off. The boy screamed while his mom held him.

  “As I worked the case, I thought to myself, what would I do to those parents if I had 24 hours alone with them? The ideas that came to mind made me question my sanity, believe me. I’ve thought about that case a lot since we met. What would I do to you, if I got the chance? Unfortunately for me, I’m restrained by the resources available in the camp. These are the most creative tortures I could come up with on short notice. I do apologize; you deserve much better.”

  Nick continued, “You probably haven’t noticed the yellow cord around your neck. Am I right?”

  Kerry looked down, barely able to focus on the cord around his neck. He could now see it. There was a yellow cord around his neck. He looked up at Nick, terrified.

  “That is Det Cord. And the little thing at the end of it isn’t a stylish bolo tie. I know you were hoping for something stylish, but it was the best I could do. It’s an igniter, and when the igniter goes off, so does the Det Cord. The result is your head pops off like a huge, infected zit. How cool is that, Kerry? I mean, really, did you think this was how your day would end as you left the camp this morning? Surprises all around for everyone, huh?”

  “Do you like animals, Kerry?”

  Kerry didn’t answer.

  Immediately, Nick went to work on the ring finger of the right hand, bathing it in the blue flame. When he finished, he asked Kerry again, “Do you like animals?”

  Kerry screamed, “Yes, yes, I love animals.”

  Nick’s filthy, blood covered face broke out into a huge smile. “Good, that’s good. Right now, I want to introduce you to some of the local mammals.”

  Nick picked up the trap filled with rats. He held the trap up level with Kerry’s terrified face, looking at him. “Don’t you think they look hungry? I don’t think they’re getting enough to eat in the jungle here. They seem anxious, and yes, I think hungry, very hungry.”

  Putting the trap down, he continued, “Anyway, if all goes according to plan, I think they’ll get some tasty treats to eat soon enough.”

  Nick started to explain the relationship Nõn had with her sponsor. He explained exactly how she’d taken the demon’s power by removing his weapon of choice against the children he victimized. “So here this beaten down little girl is feeding the man’s hyena little pieces of his cock while he watches helplessly. I have to admit, Kerry, I was impressed by her creativity. And I thought to myself, what can I do to one up that? Is there anything? I mean, how do you top that? It was a thing of beauty.”

  Kerry shook his head over and over. “NO, NO.”

  Nick kept talking to Kerry, tormenting him. Meanwhile, Nõn noticed the jungle was suddenly and ominously silent, then she saw one by one people appear on the edges of the firelight. The Wounaan had arrived in the camp, melting into the firelight from the shadows of the jungle. The tribe had them surrounded. There was no stopping Nick now, she knew that. She said nothing and let him continue.

  Nick picked up the trap and quickly poured the crazed rats into the front of the oversized sweats. Some of the rats escaped before Nick was able to secure the rope around the waist of the sweats, but not all.

  Kerry screamed now with every breath. He screamed until his voice was gone and his vocal cords shredded, and still he tried to scream. Silent, pathetic sounds came from his throat. Kerry’s face was now distorted and filled with what Nick hoped was unimaginable pain.

  Nick loudly spoke to Kerry over his soundless screams, “Can you feel the fingers I burned off now? I bet you’ve forgotten all about them, am I right?”

  Kerry writhed and moved back and forth, doing anything he could to stop the rats’ razor sharp teeth from shredding his genitalia. The sweats were beginning to shimmer crimson red as they soaked up the excess blood draining during the rats’ feast.

  Nick sat down and crossed his legs and watched. Suddenly childlike, absorbing the scene in front of him.

  Nõn went up and quietly sat next to him. Looking at him, she now knew her epiphany on the bus had been correct. He would never admit the origin of the rage that drove him to this mission. He’d understood her immediately. They shared a commonality she hadn’t realized until this moment. He wasn’t even aware of her as she sat next to him; he was fixed on the poetically horrific scene in front of him. This was a debt that had long needed to be paid, and Nick was finally collecting.

  Quietly, he said, “I’ve waited a long time for this day.”

  She knew exactly what that felt like. The Wounaan would probably kill them both at any moment, but they’d both finally, forcefully ended the reign of the demons that had haunted them.

  Finally, Kerry passed out, his sweats drenched in blood as the rats continued their feast. Nick picked up the battery operated switch for the igniter and flipped it. In a moment, Kerry’s head was reduced to a mist of bone, blood, hair and brains. Covered in the bloody pulp of what had been Kerry’s head, Nick turned to Nõn and said, “I think I’ll take that shower now.”

  The Wounaan had seen enough and took Nick and Nõn from the camp by force. They motioned to them both to follow the tribe into the jungle, weapons at the ready, should they decide to not cooperate. Watching the decapitation of Kerry and the demon had changed their opinion of the two alleged loggers, but they were still suspicious of them. Once they returned to their own village, the driver/guide explained to the tribal leaders what he’d been told of the hunts and the two sponsors’ actions towards the small boy. Then it was the child’s turn to explain his abduction. Finally, the tribal leaders called for an interpreter from another village. There was a woman there who had been educated in the schools in Panama and spoke many languages. When she arrived, she began to interview Nõn.

  Jay returned to the camp the following afternoon. He had to secure another truck and find a mechanic to begin repairs on the damaged truck they’d taken to Sambu airfield.

  When he and the driver approached the camp, they could see something was wrong. There were huge flocks of birds picking at what appeared to be two dead animals in the center of the camp. Once they actually arrived in the camp, the birds took off and left the obvious remains of two decapitated men.

  Jay was beside himself with rage. Storming to the command post, he ripped open the door to demand an explanation from the technician. He stopped just short of entering the command post. The walls inside were covered with a fine mist of blood, brains and hair, the stench was unbelievable. The technician had been attacked by someone who had removed one of his arms and nearly severed the other. What had happened to his head, Jay couldn’t determine, except it appeared to have exploded all over the command post. In just twenty-four hours, the order and precision of operations in the camp had unraveled. Jay was stunned and a little overwhelmed. What had happened? Who could have done this? And how?

  Jay’s first instinct was to clean up, then do damage control. He moved the three decapitated bodies to the wood chipper and ordered the driver to get the machinery running and dispose of the bodies.

  It was clear the two sponsors had been killed. They’d been worried by the birds and rats, so it was now difficult to determine exactly what had happened. Much of their flesh had been removed. Jay saw that in the now cold fire was what appeared to be a head. Burned beyond recognition, he wasn’t able to determine whose head it was. Once the bodies had been cleaned up and shredded in the wood chipper, Jay knew he had to come up with a cover story. He asked the driver to contact the tribal leaders and ask for a meeting, He still had to clean up the mess from the previous day’s hunt. His cover story with them would be that the two loggers had somehow escaped his crews and that he was asking for the Wounaan’s assistance in locating and killing the missing loggers. Once the camp was reasonably cleaned up, the driver took Jay in the new truck and drove to the Wounaan village to make the request.

  Jay arrived at the village and began his customary traditional greeting for the tribal leaders. Once the formalities were over and customary greetings exchanged, he explained that two of the loggers he’d hunted for the Wounaan had escaped from the camp. They were most likely hiding in the jungle and posed a very serious threat to the villagers. He asked for their help in searching for and killing the two loggers.

  The tribal leaders thanked him for his concern and warning about the two loggers. They promised to send out a party to scout for and remove the missing loggers. They asked for a description of the loggers they’d be hunting. Jay carefully described both Nõn and Nick and explained they were dangerous and resourceful. Additionally, they were both capable of being very deceitful and manipulative. If they were captured, they would most likely have a very different account of how they came to be in the jungles of the Darien Gap.

  While Jay was speaking to the tribal leaders, another conversation was going on with his driver. He was being debriefed and told to accompany Jay back to the camp and provide information about what had happened. He explained that when they returned, the camp was in complete disarray, there were three dead bodies in the camp, all of which had been decapitated. Two of the bodies had been so chewed on by the animals of the jungle, it wasn’t possible to determine what had happened or who they were, except for the technician in the command post. He had been partially dismembered. The tribal leaders he briefed wanted to know what Jay had done with the three bodies. The driver explained he’d been ordered to shred them in the chipper and that this was the standard process in the camp for disposing of bodies.

  Jay left the Wounaan with the complete confidence that they would follow through with his request and search for and kill the loggers. They didn’t tell him they already had the two in custody and had begun their own investigation into what was happening in the camp. Although Jay may have thought the tribe unsophisticated, they were not. They’d been dealing with arms traffickers and drug lords for decades and had a pretty good idea he was misleading them about the real nature of the two loggers’ identity.

  While Jay was schmoozing the tribal leaders, Nõn was speaking with the interpreter.

  It was quite a long discussion. Nõn detailed the entire process Jay had used to lure the team, she, and Nick, into the jungles. She explained how they’d been drugged and stripped of all their clothing and then paraded in front of their sponsors. When she was asked about the motivation for her sponsor wanting her brought to the camp, she explained her childhood and his role in abusing many children as a human trafficker. This explanation deeply disturbed the interpreter, but she continued to ask Nõn questions. Once she felt certain she understood Nõn’s part in the killing of the demon, and the circumstances of the young boy’s escape, she started to question Nõn about Nick’s role in the camp and the beheading and torture of Kerry. Nõn described what Nick had done and why as best she could and then suggested they speak to Nick for any further questions the tribe may have had.

 

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